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OPEC to cooperate with non-OPEC oil producers over oil market stability: chief

Xinhua, December 14, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is trying to set up a cooperation platform for OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers to restore market stability, OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo said here on Tuesday.

The dramatic oil price plunge since the middle of 2014 has caused the industry to suffer a huge investment contraction of "more than 300 billion U.S. dollars in 2015 and 2016," making it unable to meet future energy demands, said Barkindo at an event held by Center for Strategic and International Studies, a thinktank in Washington D.C.

"OPEC ministers decided it was time to take action for the industry," said Barkindo.

In the past two weeks, OPEC and 11 non-OPEC oil producers led by Russia agreed in Vienna to cut output by nearly 1.8 million barrels per day, effective from Jan. 1 for six months. The move boosted international oil prices immediately.

"This is the first time this has happened between us and non-OPEC countries. So the level of commitment we've seen in Vienna was unprecedented," said Barkindo.

Barkindo hoped such cooperation can "lay down a solid foundation for a new global platform of OPEC as well as non-OPEC countries that will build a framework of structural and sustained dialogue and cooperation to minimize these effects of cycles in the industry, particularly volatility."

Barkindo also wanted to strengthen the dialogue between the OPEC and the United States, an important importer of the cartel's oil and one of the world's largest oil producers boosted by shale revolution. Endi